The School of Journalism in Columbia University : The power of public opinion

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Columbia University

The Power of Public Opinion

By

JOSEPH PULITZER

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The School of Journalism

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Columbia University

The Power of Public Opinion

By
JOSEPH PULITZER

Published by

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Morningside Heights
New York, N. Y.

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The School of Journalism in
Columbia University 1

A Review of Criticisms and Objections Reflections Upon the Power, the
Progress and the Prejudices of the Press Why Specialized Concentration
and Education at College Would Improve the Character and Work of Jour-
nalists and So Promote the Welfare of the Republic.

" The man who writes, the man who month in and month out, week in and week out, day in and
day out, furnishes the material which is to shape the thoughts of our people, is essentially the man who
more than any other determines the character of the people and the- kind of government this people shall
possess." PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, April 7, 1904.

THE editor of The North American Review has asked me to
reply to an article recently printed in its pages criticising the
College of Journalism which I have endowed as part of Columbia
University. In complying with his request 1 have enlarged the
scope of the reply to include all other criticisms and misgivings,
many honest, some shallow, some based on misunderstanding,
but the most representing only prejudice and ignorance. If my
comment upon these criticisms shall seem to be diffuse and per-
haps repetitious, my apology is that alas ! I am compelled to
write by voice, not pen, and to revise the proofs by ear, not eye
a somewhat difficult task.

1 Reprinted by special permission from The North American Review for May, 1904. Copyright,
1904, by the North American Review Publishing Co.

1

Some of my critics have called my scheme " visionary." If it
be so I can at least plead that it is a vision I have cherished long,
thought upon deeply and followed persistently. Twelve years
ago I submitted the idea to President Low of Columbia, but it
was not accepted by the Trustees. I have ever since continued
to perfect and organize the scheme in my mind, and now it is
adopted. In examining the criticisms and misgivings I have been
anxious only to find the truth. I admit that the difficulties are
many, but after weighing them all impartially I am more firmly
convinced than ever of the ultimate success of the idea. Before
the century closes schools of journalism will be generally accepted
as a feature of specialized higher education, like schools of law or
of medicine.

And now for our critics and objectors :

Must journal- They object, the critics and cavillers, that a " newspaper man "
1st Be " Bom "? mus ^ depend solely upon natural aptitude, or, in the common
phrase, that he must be "born, not made."

Perhaps the critics can name some great editor, born full-
winged like Mercury, the messenger of the gods? 1 know of
none. The only position that occurs to me which a man in our
Republic can successfully fill by the simple fact of birth is that of
an idiot. Is there any other position for which a man does not
demand and receive training training at home, training in schools
and colleges, training by master craftsmen, or training through
bitter experience through the burns that make the child dread
the fire, through blunders costly to the aspirant ?

This last is the process by which the profession of journalism
at present obtains its recruits. It works by natural selection and
the survival of the fittest, and its failures are strewn along the
wayside.

The " born editor " who has succeeded greatly without special

preparation is simply a man with unusual ability and aptitude for
his chosen profession, with great power of concentration and
sustained effort. He is one who loves his work and puts his
whole heart and mind into it. He is in the strictest sense an
educated man, but he has merely substituted s//-education for
education by others, making up for any deficiencies in his train-
ing by the unreserved sacrifice of strength, energy and pleasure.
Even in his case might it not be an advantage to have a system
of instruction that would give him the same results at a saving of
much time and labor ?

Education begins in the cradle, at home, with a mother's
teaching, and is continued by other influences through life. A
college is one of those influences useful, but with no magical
power. A fool trailing an alphabet of degrees after his name is
still a fool ; and a genius, if necessary, will make his own college,
although with a painful waste of effort which might be better
reserved for productive work. I seem to remember that Lincoln,
whose academy was a borrowed book read by the light of a pine-
knot on the hearth, studied Euclid in Congress when nearly forty.
But would it not have been better if that work had been done at
fourteen ?

All intelligence requires development. The highest profits
by it; the lowest is helpless without it. Shakespeare's best
play, Hamlet, was not his first, but his nineteenth, written
after growth and maturity after the hard work, the experience, the
exercise of faculties and the accumulation of knowledge gained
by writing eighteen plays. As Shakespeare was a " born " genius,
why did he not write Hamlet first ?

John Stuart Mill had natural talents, but they were strained to
the last possible limit of accomplishment by a course of early
training that was not only thorough but inhuman. His father

was his college a great college, better than any in England.
Like Mill, Herbert Spencer, Buckle, Huxley, Tyndall and Lewes
were without college education, but their mental discipline was
most severe. Cobden was undoubtedly a genius born, but if we
compare his original style turgid, clumsy with the masterly
clearness and force of his trained maturity, can we doubt that his
brain was developed by the hardest work, just as Sandow's
muscles were developed ?

Of course in every field natural aptitude is the key to success.
When the experiment was tried of turning Whistler into a dis-
ciplined soldier even West Point had to lay down its arms. Your
sawmill may have all the modern improvements, but it will not
make a pine board out of a basswood log. No college can create
a good lawyer without a legal mind to work on, nor make a suc-
cessful doctor of a young man whom nature designed to sell tape.
Talleyrand took holy orders, but they did not turn him into a
holy man.

The great general, even more than the great editor, is supposed
to be born, not made. The picturesque historian tells us that he
" fell like a thunderbolt upon the enemy," and we imagine a mira-
cle-working magician. But the truth is that the brilliant general
is simply a man who has learned how to apply skilfully the natu-
ral laws of force, and who has the nerve to act on his knowledge.
Hannibal, the greatest of all in my opinion, is called a typical ex-
ample of native military genius. But can we forget that he was
the son and pupil of Hamilcar, the ablest soldier of his generation,
born in the camp, never outside the military atmosphere, sworn
in earliest boyhood to war and hatred of Rome and endowed by
his father with all the military knowledge that the experience of
antiquity could give ? He was educated. In his father he had a
military college to himself. Can we think of Napoleon without

remembering that he had the best military education of his time
at the college of Brienne, and that he was always an eager student
of the great campaigns of history ? Frederick the Great lost his
head in his first battle. It took him years to learn his trade and
finally to surpass his instructors. There is not a cadet at any
military school who is not expected as a necessary part of his pro-
fessional preparation to study every important battle on record
to learn how it was fought, what mistakes were committed on
each side and how it was won.

Every issue of a newspaper represents a battle a battle for
excellence. When the editor reads it and compares it with its
rivals he knows that he has scored a victory or suffered a defeat.
Might not the study of the most notable of these battles of the
press be as useful to the student of journalism as is the study of
military battles to the student of war ?

They object that news instinct must be born.

Certainly. But however great a gift, if news instinct as born
were turned loose in any newspaper office in New York without
the control of sound judgment bred by considerable experience
and training, the results would be much more pleasing to the law-
yers than to the editor. One of the chief difficulties in journalism
now is to keep the news instinct from running rampant over the
restraints of accuracy and conscience. And if " a nose for news "
is born in the cradle, does not the instinct, like other great quali-
ties, need development by teaching, by training, by practical
object-lessons illustrating the good and the bad, the Right and
the Wrong, the popular and the unpopular, the things that suc-
ceed and the things that fail, and, above all, the things that deserve
to succeed and the things that do not not the things only that
make circulation for to-day, but the things that make character
and influence and public confidence ?

Can Conscience " Of the ends to be kept in view by the legislator, all are unimportant compared to the end of ' char-

Be Develooed ? *ctec-niaking.' This alone is national education." HERBERT SPENCER.

They object that moral character, like news instinct, cannot
be made, but must be born. This is a very serious objection, for
to me an editor without moral character has nothing. But is it
entirely true? Have not the critics themselves reached their
present moral altitude by degrees ? Training cannot create tem-
perament, I admit, nor perhaps radically change it ; but is not
conscience different from temperament ? Is it not largely a ques-
tion of education ? May it not be considered more an acquired
than an inherited or inherent quality ? Is there not some reason
to believe that conscience is largely a question of climate and
geography ? As Macaulay said : " Child murder in London leads
to the scaffold ; on the Ganges it is an honored religious sacrifice."
A Hindu widow who burned herself to death on her husband's
funeral pyre was performing the highest duty imposed by her
moral sense. The English regarded her sacrifice as not only a
crime, but the act of an incredible fool, and suppressed it in callous
disregard of the protests of her shocked conscience.

Many an English or American married woman not only re-
gards widowhood without any of those feelings of horror that led
her Hindu sister to cut it short on the funeral pile she often an-
ticipates it by the help of the divorce courts, and enjoys the pleas-
ing sensation of being the legal widow of more than one man at
the same time. The missionary feels no profounder complacency
in converting the cannibal than the cannibal feels in eating the
missionary. A Kentucky mountaineer will commit murder, but
he will not steal ; a ward politician will often steal, but he will
not, as a rule, commit murder. In Turkey a man may with a
clear conscience have several wives ; in Tibet a woman may have
several husbands ; in America nobody may have more than one

6

husband or wife in good legal standing at a time. If George
Washington had been kidnapped in infancy and reared by thieves
in a slum, with a thief for his only instructor instead of the
devout mother who trained him in morals and religion, is it likely
that he would have grown up the Washington whom we love
and revere as the father of his country ?

They object that moral courage cannot be taught. Very true. Can Moral COUT-
I admit that it is the hardest thing in the world to teach. But age Be Taught?
may we not be encouraged by the reflection that physical courage
is taught ? It is not to be supposed that every young man who
enters West Point or Annapolis, Brienne, St. Cyr or Sandhurst
is a born hero. Yet the student at any of these schools is so
drilled, hammered and braced in the direction of courage that
by the time he graduates it is morally certain that when he takes
his men under fire for the first time he will not flinch. Pride
and the spirit of emulation can make masses of men do what
even a hero would not venture to do alone. Is it likely that Na-
poleon himself would have charged in solitary grandeur across
the bridge at Lodi if there had been no one to see him do it ?
Or would Pickett's brigade at Gettysburg have gone forward to
destruction if every man in it had not been lifted out of himself
by the feeling that he and his comrades were all doing a heroic
thing together a thing in which he simply could not do less
than the rest ?

If such things can be done for physical courage, why not for
moral courage ? If the mind can be taught to expose the body
fearlessly to wounds and death, cannot the soul be taught to cling
to its convictions against temptation, prejudice, obloquy and
persecution ? Moral courage is developed by experience and by
teaching. Every successful exercise of it makes the next easier.
The editor is often confronted by an apparent dilemma either to

Must Journal-
ism Be Learned
in the Office ?

yield to a popular passion that he feels to be wrong or to risk
the consequences of unpopularity. Adherence to convictions can
and should be taught by precept and example as not only high
principle but sound policy. Might not a hundred concrete ex-
amples of inflexible devotion to the right serve as a moral tonic
to the student ?

They object that such making as a newspaper man needs after
he has been successfully born can be done only in the actual
practice of the office, or " shop."

What is the actual practice of the office ? It is not intentional,
but only incidental training ; it is not apprenticeship it is work,
in which every participant is supposed to know his business.
Nobody in a newspaper office has the time or the inclination to
teach a raw reporter the things he ought to know before taking
up even the humblest work of the journalist. That is not what
editors are doing. One of the learned critics remarks that Greeley
took young Raymond in hand and hammered him into a great
editor. True. But was it not an expensive process, as well as
an unusual one the most distinguished newspaper-maker of his
time turning himself into a college of journalism for the benefit
of a single pupil ? Suppose a man of half Greeley's capacity, set
free from the exhausting labors and the harassing perplexities
of creating a newspaper every day relieved from the necessity
of correcting the blunders of subordinates, of watching to pre-
vent the perpetration of more blunders, and able to concentrate
his whole heart and soul upon training his pupils might he not
be able to turn out, not one Raymond, but forty ?

Incidentally, I venture to mention that in my own experience
as a newspaper reporter and editor I never had one single lesson
from anybody.

The "shop " idea is the one that used to prevail in the law and

8

in medicine. Legal studies began by copying bills of costs for the
country lawyer ; medical training by sweeping out a doctor's
office. Now it is recognized that better results are obtained by
starting with a systematic equipment in a professional school.
The lawyer learns nothing at college except the theory of the
law, its principles and some precedents. When he receives his
diploma he is quite unprepared to practise. Nor does the doctor
learn to practise at the medical school. He learns only prin-
ciples, theories, rules, the experience of others the foundation
of his profession. After leaving college he must work in the
hospitals to acquire the art of practically applying his knowledge.
In journalism at present the newspaper offices are the hospi-
tals, but the students come to them knowing nothing of principles
or theories. The newspaper hospital is extremely accommodating.
It furnishes the patients for its young men to practise on, puts
dissecting-knives into the hands of beginners who do not know
an artery from a vermiform appendix and pays them for the
blunders by which they gradually teach themselves their pro-
fession. We may sympathize with the students in their industri-
ous efforts at self-education, but may we not also sympathize
with the unfortunate editor who has to work with such incompe-
tent instruments ?

" To rear up minds with aspirations and faculties above the herd, capable ofleading on their country- T S a w ew College
men to greater achievement in virtue, intelligence and general well-being these are the ends for which ' ~

endowed universities are desirable ; they are those which all endowed universities profess to aim at, "
and great is their disgrace if, having undertaken this task and claiming credit for fulfilling it, they leave
it unfulfilled." JOHN STUART MILL.

They object that even if a college education be desirable
everything needed is already provided in the existing colleges
and no special department is required.

This criticism appears to have some force. It is possible that
it may be advanced with sincerity by intelligent newspaper men

who know nothing of colleges, or by intelligent college men who
know nothing of newspapers. But it is superficial. It is true
that many of the subjects needed for the general education of a
journalist are already covered in college. But they are too much
covered. The student of journalism may find one course in a
law school, another in a graduate school of political science, an-
other, at the same hour, in an undergraduate class at college and
another in a department of literature.

A young man of very remarkable gifts enough to enable him
to educate himself without the help of a college might be able
to make from the immensely bulky and intricate catalogue a selec-
tion of courses which would appear on paper to be a very fair
curriculum. It would perhaps be adequate if he could keep the
studies from conflicting in hours, which he could not, and if at
twenty years of age he already possessed that knowledge of the
requirements of his chosen profession which I feel that nearly
twice twenty years' experience and hard work in my profession
have not given me.

But after this wonderful young man has made out his list
of studies he will be doomed to disappointment. The courses in
history, in law, in political science and the rest will not be what
he really needs as a specialist in journalism. They will give him
only a fraction of the knowledge he requires on those subjects,
and they will swamp that fraction in a flood of details of which he
can make no use. To fit these courses to his purpose they must
be remodelled and specialized. Modern industry looks sharply
after its by-products. In silver-mining, gold is sometimes found
as a by-product exceeding the value of the silver. So in general
university courses we may find by-products that would meet the
needs of the journalist. Why not divert, deflect, extract, concen-
trate, specialise them for the journalist as a specialist?

10

The spirit of specialization is everywhere. The lawyer is a
real-estate lawyer, or a criminal lawyer, or a corporation lawyer,
or possibly a criminal-corporation lawyer. Formerly the family
physician treated every ailment ; now there are specialists for the
eye, the ear, the throat, the teeth ; for men, for women, for
children ; even for imaginary diseases ; for every possible variety
of practice. And there is specialization in the newspaper offices
themselves. The editor of a New York paper confined to the
editorial page is as much surprised as the reader when in the
morning he reads the news columns. The news editor does not
know what editorials there will be ; the musical critic could not
write of sporting events ; the man with the priceless sense of
humor could not record and interpret the movements of the stock-
market. The men in all these fields are specialists. The object
of the College of Journalism will be to dig through this general
scheme intended to cover every possible career or work in life,
every profession, to select and concentrate only upon the things
which the journalist wants, and not to waste time on things that
he does not want.

They object that a college of journalism would establish class Class Distinc-
distinctions in the profession an invidious distinction of the few tions w^y
who had received the benefits of a collegiate training against the
many who had not enjoyed this advantage. I sincerely hope
it will create a class distinction between the fit and the unfit. We
need a class feeling among journalists one based not upon
money but upon morals, education and character.

There are still a few places in which money is not everything,
and they are those in which men are joined by a bond of honor-
able association. The cadet at West Point is taught honor and
pride in his profession. He knows that none of his comrades
will lie or cheat or do anything unworthy of a gentleman, and the

11

pleasure he feels in such associations fully compensates for his
ridiculously small income. He sees thousands of vulgar people,
much more prosperous than himself, living in much greater
luxury, yet he would not change his life and his social circle for
theirs. May we not hope that a similar education will in the future
create a similar corps feeling among journalists the same pride
in the profession, the same determination to do nothing ''unbe-
coming an officer and a gentleman " ? Why not ?

The journalist has a position that is all his own. He alone
has the privilege of moulding the opinion, touching the hearts
and appealing to the reason of hundreds of thousands every day.
Here is the most fascinating of all professions. The soldier may
wait forty years for his opportunity. Most lawyers, most physi-
cians, most clergymen die in obscurity, but every single day opens
new doors for the journalist who holds the confidence of the
community and has the capacity to address it.

But as yet the journalist works alone. If he is a college gradu-
ate he goes to his college club as a graduate, not as a journalist.
He never speaks of another journalist as " my colleague," as the
lawyer or the physician does of his professional brother. He
hardly ever meets other journalists socially in any numbers. But
if the future editors of the city were in large proportion gradu-
ates of the same college and had a recognized professional meeting-
place in which they could come together informally and discuss
matters of common interest, would they not eventually develop a
professional pride that would enable them to work in concert
for the public good and that would put any black sheep of the
profession in a very uncomfortable position ? Such a spirit
would be the surest guaranty against the control of the press
by powerful financial interests not an imaginary danger by any
means.

13

If such a class spirit existed no editor who had degraded him-
self by becoming the hireling or any Wall Street king or ring
would dare to face his colleagues. He would be too conscious of
having been false to his better nature and equally false to the
traditions of his college and of his profession. It would be impos-
sible then for any Huntington or Gould of the next generation
to buy up newspapers a thing easily feasible where hundreds of
millions are at stake unless there is a strong feeling of class pride
and principle to prevent it. The knowledge that a reputable
journalist would refuse to edit any paper that represented private
interest against the public good would be enough of itself to
discourage such an enterprise. Such a refusal would be as severe
a blow to public confidence in the newspaper as the rejection of
a brief by a high-minded lawyer is to the standing of a case in
court.

No, there is nothing to fear in class distinctions founded on
moral and mental superiority on education and knowledge. We
need more such classes, in the presence of the prevailing mania
for mere money-making. The million of teachers form a class of
this kind, with small pay, but with the consciousness of pursuing
a noble profession. Such distinctions are especially necessary in
a republic which has discarded everything in the way of rank and
title and left personal merit the only thing that can dispute the
worship of wealth.

They object that schools of journalism have been tried and Has the
have failed. This is very shallow, and while technically true is Ex P enment

.... _, , . ' Been Tried?

practically untrue. There are persons occupying desk-room in
grimy offices who advertise to make journalists to order. There
are more pretentious "correspondence schools" which tell, no
doubt correctly, how to read proof and prepare copy for the
press. And there have even been certain courses of lectures in

13

colleges and universities of standing, in which gentlemen of more
or less extensive experience in journalism have expressed some
general ideas about the requirements of the profession. This thus
far has been the Lilliputian limit of effort in the direction of a
university training for journalism.

So far as these could have any effect at all it would be in the
direction of convincing the student that he would do better to
choose some other profession. One lecturer, who is an exceedingly
successful and able magazine editor, devoted his time to explain-
ing the value of fiction and the " market " for short stories. He
treated newspapers solely from the commercial point of view and
never once referred to their ethical side.

Something has been said of a so-called school of journalism in
London, which is compared with the proposed institution at
Columbia. I do not wish to disparage the London school, but it
has about ten boys, not college students, just schoolboys, and
its whole endowment is one travelling scholarship. I may men-
tion incidentally that there will be five travelling scholarships at
Columbia. To compare a boys' school or a few desultory courses
of lectures with a college amply and permanently endowed and
equipped in a great university is preposterous. Instruction in
journalism has never yet had a fair chance to show what it can
do. The new institution will be the first experiment of its kind.

They object that competent teachers, without whom the most
Be Found? ^genious plans of instruction must fail, are not to be found. I
confess that this is the greatest, gravest difficulty and danger.
Like any college, we must have in the first place a combination
of the highest character and capacity, with love of and aptitude
for teaching. Even this is no small thing to ask, as the diffi-
culty of the colleges in finding suitable professors may warn us.
But we need something beyond and much rarer than this.

u

Teachers of journalism should also be experienced editors. But
how are we to lure a truly able editor from the active work of the
profession in which there is such splendid scope for his powers
and such eager competition for his services while he is in the
prime of life ?

The difficulty of drawing the right men from active service
suggests the possibility that it may be necessary to fall back upon
retired editors, who can no longer take part in the strenuous
newspaper life. But my hope is that the whole profession will
see in this situation an appeal to its honor and its pride. I hope
that the very difficulty of the problem will prove its own solution,
by enlisting the sympathetic interest and aid of the men of power
and of energy who would not waste their time on work that others
could do. These men could not shirk the responsibilities of
leadership if they would, nor do I believe they would if they could.

The greatest painters of Paris visit the art schools and criticise
the work of the pupils. The masters of the New York bar give
lectures in the law schools. The most famous physicians teach in
the medical colleges. Why should the greatest editors not have
an equally unselfish pride in and love of their own profession ?
Upon their generous sympathy and aid will depend the success of
the experiment.

Nor need we confine our search to journalists. Historians like
McMaster, Wilson and Rhodes ; college presidents like Eliot, Had-
ley and Angell; judges like Fuller, Brewer and Gray could help
the work with lectures and suggestions. It is nothing new for a
justice of the Supreme Court to lecture in college. Justice Story
did it at Harvard, Justice Field did it at the University of Cali-
fornia, Justices Harlan and Brewer do it now at the Columbian
University at Washington. Even ex-Presidents have not thought
such work belittling. Harrison lectured at Stanford and Cleveland

15

at Princeton. And surely the greatest minds of the nation
must realize how indissolubly a pure republic is linked with an
upright press. National pride will, I fully trust, constrain them
to do what they can for the elevation of an agency by which the
destinies of the Union are so profoundly affected for good or for
evil.

Unteachable " Our taste is improved exactly as we improve our judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a
steady attention to one object, and by frequent exercise." BURKB on " The Sublime and Beautiful."

They object there are some things that a college of journalism
cannot teach. I admit it. No college can give imagination, initia-
tive, impulses, enthusiasm, a sense of humor or irony. These
things must be inborn. But would not such inborn qualities be
developed and strengthened in the atmosphere of the proposed
college ? Is not the development of such inborn qualities seen
everywhere in intellectual life ? The poet, it is true, is born, not
made. That is also true of a great orator and a great painter.
But does not the great poet indicate and cultivate his inborn
genius by instinctively devouring, even as a child, all the poetry
he can procure ? Keats wrote : "I long to feast upon old Homer
as we have upon Shakespeare and as I have lately upon Milton."
Did not such orators as Demosthenes, Cicero, Burke and Webster
declaim the masterpieces of oratory and rhetoric ? Did not Van
Dyck and every other great painter benefit by the careful study of
the work of their great predecessors in art ? And with these facts
in mind may we not hope that the student at Columbia, living in
an atmosphere of journalism, with the highest examples and ideals
of journalism constantly before him, will bring to the highest effi-
ciency whatever dormant or inborn faculty he may possess ? It
seems to me that the more conclusively the critics prove certain
things to be unteachable the more they prove the necessity of
teaching everything possible that is teachable.

16

This is all that any education can do, and it is enough. Edu-
cation is development, not creation. If its value depended upon
its ability to bring mental qualities into existence from nothing
every educational institution from the kindergarten to the univer-
sity would have to close its doors and every educator would be
out of employment.

In short, does not every mental worker, whether creative or
imitative, try to steep himself in the atmosphere of his work?
And is it not reasonable to suppose that our student would gain
some advantage from living and working for some years in the
atmosphere of journalistic training ?

Finally, they object that I have proved a college course in jour-
nalism to be unnecessary by succeeding without one. Perhaps I
may be permitted to judge of that. It is ingenious to use me as a
club against my own plan. If I have had any success it has been
because I never, so far as my individual work and pleasure are
concerned, regarded journalism as a business. From my first
hour's work, through a period of nearly forty years, I have re-
garded journalism not only as a profession, but as the noblest of
all professions: I have always felt that I was in touch with the
public mind and ought to do some good every day. Probably I
have failed, but it has not been for lack of effort.

"The journalist's opportunity is beyond estimate. To him are given the keys of every study, the What Should
entry to every family, the ear of every citizen when at ease and in his most receptjve moods powers of r , T>
approach and of persuasion beyond those of the Protestant pastor or the Catholic confessor. He is by
no means a prophet, but, reverently be it said, he is a voice in the wilderness preparing the way. He
is by no means a priest, but his words carry wider and further than the priest's, and he preaches tht
gospel of humanity. He is not a king, but he nurtures and trains the king, and the land is ruled by the
public opinion he evokes and shapes. If you value this good land the Lord has given us, if you would
have a share in this marvellous civilization and lifting power of humanity, look well to the nurture and
training of your king." HON. WHITELAW REID.

Not to teach typesetting, not to explain the methods of busi-
ness management, not to reproduce with trivial variations the

17

course of a commercial college. This is not university work. It
needs no endowment. It is the idea of work for the community,
not commerce, not for one's self, but primarily for the public, that
needs to be taught. The School of Journalism is to be, in my
conception, not only not commercial, but anti-commercial. It is
to exalt principle, knowledge, culture, at the expense of business
if need be. It is to set up ideals, to keep the counting-room in its
proper place, and to make the soul of the editor the soul of the
paper. Incidentally 1 may say that I have never spent an hour in
any publication office either of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch or The
World, though 1 established both these journals and still own
them.

In the proposed course of study, drawn up with admirable
quickness, but tentatively, by. President Eliot and widely discussed
as if it had been definitely adopted, Dr. Eliot included instruction
in the business administration of a newspaper. He mentioned
specifically circulation, advertising, manufacture and finance.

My own ideas upon many parts of the course of study are still
uncertain, but upon this one point they are very decided. I am
sure that if my wishes are to be considered business instruction
of any sort should not, would not and must not form any part of
the work of the College of Journalism.

The course of instruction will be decided by the Advisory
Board, which is not yet appointed, acting in conjunction with the
authorities of the university.

1 have the greatest admiration for the extraordinary genius and
character of the president of Harvard, but nothing was further
from my mind nothing, in fact, is more inconsistent and incom-
patible with my intentions or repugnant to my feelings than to
include any of the business or commercial elements of a newspaper
in what is to be taught in this department of Columbia College.

18

What is a college of journalism ? It is an institution to train
journalists. What is a journalist ? Not any business manager or
publisher, or even proprietor. A journalist is the lookout on the
bridge of the ship of state. He notes the passing sail, the little
things of interest that dot the horizon in fine weather. He reports
the drifting castaway whom the ship can save. He peers through
fog and storm to give warning of dangers ahead. He is not think-
ing of his wages or of the profits of his owners. He is there to
watch over the safety and the welfare of the people who trust
him.

Few men in the business office of a newspaper know anything
about the principles of journalism. The proprietor himself is not
necessarily a journalist. He may be if he is capable of under-
standing public questions, of weighing public interests, of carry-
ing out public tasks ; if he is in touch with public feeling, realizes
public duties, is in sympathy with the public welfare, and is
capable of presenting his ideas to the people, either by his own
pen or by the pens of others. But it is quite conceivable that
some proprietors are very deficient in these points.

My hope is that this College of Journalism will raise the stand-
ard of the editorial profession. But to do this it must mark the
distinction between real journalists and men who do a kind of
newspaper work that requires neither knowledge nor conviction,
but merely business training. 1 wish to begin a movement that
will raise journalism to the rank of a learned profession, growing
in the respect of the community as other professions far less
important to the public interests have grown.

There is an obvious difference between a business and a pro-
fession. An editor, an editorial writer or a correspondent is not
in business. Nor is even a capable reporter. These men are
already in a profession, though they may not admit it or even

19

realize it, as many of them, unhappily, do not. Ill or well, they
represent authorship, and authorship is a profession.

The man in the counting-room of a newspaper is in the news-
paper business. He concentrates his brain (quite legitimately)
upon the commercial aspects of things, upon the margin of profit,
upon the reduction of expenses, upon buying white paper and
selling it printed and that is business. But a man who has the
advantage, honor and pleasure of addressing the public every day
as a writer or thinker is a professional man. So, of course, is
he who directs these writers and reporters, who tells them what
to say and how to say it, who shows them how to think who
inspires them, though he may never write a line himself, and de-
cides what the principles and objects of the paper shall be. For
example, the greatest editor in the whole history of European
journalism, John Delane, never wrote any articles of his own,
although for thirty-six years he was the head, the heart, the brain
of the London Times. But he directed every writer, he furnished
the thought, the policy, the initiative ; he bore the responsibility,
and he corrected both manuscript and proofs.

In this relation perhaps it may be interesting to note that
Delane studied law and was admitted to the bar before he became
its editor at the age of twenty-four. But it was without any
intention of practising. His father, who was a lawyer for the
Times, destined him for its service from his boyhood, and he
joined its staff as a reporter soon after passing his legal examina-
tions. Delane, with his editorial revision, elimination and sub-
stitution, was like some of the great old painters, who had much
of their work, measured by mere bulk, done for them by pupils.
Rubens, or Van Dyck, or Raphael furnished the idea, the design,
the composition, in an original drawing ; the pupils did the bulk
of the execution. Then the artist added the finishing touches

20

that lifted the picture to the rank of a masterpiece. Only
in that way could the enormous output ascribed to those mas-
ters have been produced. So it was with Delane, and so it
is with every editor who knows how to make the most of his
powers.

That a newspaper, however great as a public institution and a
public teacher, must also be a business is not to be denied, but
there is nothing exceptional in this. Elements of business, of
economy, of income and outgo, are in the government of the city,
the State, the nation, in art, in every school, in every college, in
every university, indeed, in every church. But a bishop, even
though he receives pay for his work, is not regarded as a business
man ; nor is a great artist, though he charge the highest possible
price for his paintings and die as rich as Meissonier or Rubens.
Many distinguished lawyers, such as Mr. Tilden, one of the
greatest, were shrewd business men, able probably to outwit the
majority of publishers, yet they were rightly considered members
of an intellectual profession.

George Washington had extraordinary business capacity. By
intelligent economy, method, sound judgment and the closest
attention to details he accumulated the greatest American fortune
of his time. Yet when he was called to serve the country in the
field he did it without a salary. At Mount Vernon he was a busi-
ness man ; in history he is a soldier, a statesman and the father of
his country.

To sum up, the banker or broker, the baker or the candlestick-
maker is in business in trade. But the artist, the statesman,
the thinker, the writer all who are in touch with the public taste
and mind, whose thoughts reach beyond their own livelihood to
some public interest are in professions.

21

Dangers of " O"* improvement is in proportion to our purpose." MARCUS AURELIUS.

N tnin g less than the highest ideals, the most scrupulous
anxiety to do right, the most accurate knowledge of the problems
it has to meet and a sincere sense of its moral responsibility will
save journalism from subservience to business interests, seeking
selfish ends antagonistic to the public welfare. For instance,
Jay Gould once owned the principal Democratic newspaper of
America. He had obtained it from Col. "Tom " Scott in a trade
for the Texas Pacific Railroad, and I was fortunate enough to
be able to relieve him of his unprofitable burden. C. P. Hun-
tington bought a New York newspaper and turned it into a Dem-
ocratic organ, he himself, like Gould, being an ardent Republican.
He hoped in this way to influence Mr. Cleveland's administration
and the Democrats in Congress against making the Pacific rail-
roads pay their debts of about $120,000,000 to the Government.
Incidentally he testified under oath that his journalistic experi-
ment cost him over a million dollars, although his newspaper was
so obscure that its utterances were hardly more than soliloquies.
Mr. Huntington did somehow succeed in delaying for a number
of years the enforcement of the Treasury's claims. However
dangerous the plutocratic control of newspapers for sordid private
ends may be, their control by demagogues for ambitious, selfish
ends is an equally apparent evil. The people know, with un-
erring instinct, when a newspaper is devoted to private rather
than to public interests; and their refusal to buy it limits its
capacity for harm. But when a demagogic agitator appeals to
"the masses" against "the classes" and poses as the ardent
friend of the people against their " oppressors," assailing law and
order and property as a means of gaining followers among the
discontented and unthinking, the newspaper becomes a dangerous
power for evil.

Commercialism has a legitimate place in a newspaper, namely,
in the business office. The more successful a newspaper is com-
mercially the better for its moral side. The more prosperous it
is the more independent it can afford to be, the higher salaries it
can pay to editors and reporters, the less subject it will be to
temptation, the better it can stand losses for the sake of principle
and conviction. But commercialism, which is proper and neces-
sary in the business office, becomes a degradation and a danger
when it invades the editorial rooms. Once let the public come to
regard the press as exclusively a commercial business and there
is an end of its moral power. Influence cannot exist without
public confidence. And that confidence must have a human basis.
It must rest in the end on the character of the journalist. The
editor, the real "journalist " of the future, must be a man of such
known integrity that he will be above the suspicion of writing or
editing against his convictions. He must be known as one who
would resign rather than sacrifice his principles to any business
interest. It would be well if the editor of every newspaper were
also its proprietor, but every editor can be at least the proprietor
of himself. If he cannot keep the paper from degrading itself he
can refuse to be a party to the degradation.

By far the larger part of the American press is honest, although
partisan. It means to do right ; it would like to know how. To
strengthen its resolution and give to its wisdom the indispensable
basis of knowledge and independent character is the object of
training in journalism.

" I know but two ways by which society can be governed : the one is by Public Opinion, the other fhe March of
by the Sword.-MACAULAY. Progress

In an interesting review of its seventy years of life the New
York Sun estimated the total circulation of the six morning papers
existing in New York at its birth at 18,000 copies a day. Since

23

then four of these six journals have died and the Tribune, Times,
Herald and World have been born.

To-day the New York morning papers alone print more than a
million copies of every issue. At least 1,500,000 copies more are
added every working-day by the evening papers, which seventy
years ago did not exist. In other words, for every New York
newspaper sold in 1833 140 are sold now to fourteen times as
many people. Where there used to be nearly three families to
every newspaper there are now over three newspapers to every
family.

There are men now living whose memories can bridge that gap
of seventy years. In 1833 Andrew Jackson was President. The
entire United States had less than the present population of the
States of New York and Pennsylvania, and far less wealth than is
concentrated to-day within half a mile of Trinity Church. There
was not an American settlement west of the Missouri, and a few
cabins were the only marks of civilization on the site of Chicago.
New York City was smaller than Detroit is now. Washington
was a swamp in which coaches were mired down and abandoned
on Pennsylvania Avenue, and cows grazed on the site of the Brit-
ish Embassy. A generation had passed since Jackson had resigned
his seat in the Senate because it took him nearly six weeks to
make the journey between Philadelphia, then the capital, and his
home, a longer time than it has taken within the past year to
girdle the globe, but there were yet Senators who found the trip
to Washington not much shorter. Still there were steamboats
on the navigable rivers, and stage-coaches drawn over rails by
steam-engines had just begun to astonish the inhabitants of a few
favored localities. The horse was still the usual motor for high-
speed traffic and the ox or the mule the customary freight-engine.
" De Witt Clinton's ditch " across the State of New York was the

24

commercial marvel of the age. The people of Virginia were
strangers to the people of Pennsylvania, and the journey from
Philadelphia to Pittsburg was longer and vastly more arduous than
the journey now from Boston to the City of Mexico. The farmer
reaped his grain with a scythe and cradle and threshed it with
a flail or under the feet of horses. Whale-oil lamps glimmered
feebly through the darkness of the city streets. Nails were made
by hand on the blacksmith's forge. In the country a calico gown
was a luxury, to be worn on state occasions. Colleges were few
and puny. Harvard, the most ambitious of them all, was a high
school in which a few professors taught Latin, Greek, moral phi-
losophy and a little mathematics, leading in most cases to a course
in theology. There was not a single real university in America.
There were no great libraries.

In the best presses of that day, and for many years after, it was
necessary to feed the paper by hand, one sheet at a time, print it
on one side, and then feed it again and print it on the other. All
the presses then in existence would not have been able to print a
single edition of a leading New York newspaper of our time such
as whirls between the cylinders of a Hoe machine from endless
rolls of paper at the speed of the Niagara rapids. All the paper-
mills then in the country could not have met the demands of such
a journal for white paper. All the news-gathering agencies in the
world would have hopelessly broken down in the attempt to pro-
vide even a fraction of its present daily supply of information.
Had any one suggested then that children were already born who
would be still living and reading when news would be flashed
from Tokyo to New York by lightning and printed before it hap-
pened ; who would see on the same page despatches of the same
date from India, from Siberia, from Australia, from Corea, and from
the sources of the Nile ; that one of them in Boston could talk

25

with his own voice to another in Omaha; that they would see
newspapers printed on ships on the Atlantic containing news shot
on invisible waves over a thousand miles of ocean, and that they
could take breakfast in New York and dine in London a week later,
he would have been treated as an eccentric " visionary."

So much for the seventy years upon which the old man can
look back what of the seventy years to which the boy can look
forward ?

The population of the Republic is still increasing at a rate that
is more than equivalent to annexing a Canada every four years.
New York promises to displace London in twenty or thirty years
as the first city of the world. Nearly a million immigrants landed
last year the greatest human flood in all modern history. Elec-
tric trains have already been driven at a hundred and fifty miles
an hour as great an advance on the ordinary express train of
1904 as that has been on the stage-coach of 1833. Wireless
telegraphy is in its feeble infancy and radium is hinting of things
unsuspected. The nations are drawing together. The Interna-
tional Postal Union and international conventions on copyrights,
tarifTs, arbitration and other matters of common concern are
teaching the people that it is as easy to co-operate as to quarrel.
At the smallest rate of increase we have ever known in any census
period the population of the United States would not be less than
290,000,000 in seventy years from now. Even allowing for any
reasonable decline in the rate of growth it can hardly fall below
200,000,000.

We are embarked, whether we like it or not, upon a revolution
in thought and life. Progress is sweeping forward with accel-
erating force, outstripping in decades the advance of former cen-
turies and millenniums. All professions, all occupations but one,
are keeping step with this majestic march. Its inspiration has

26

fired all ranks of the marching army or must we except the
standard-bearers ? The self-constituted leaders and enlighteners
of the people what are they doing ? Standing still, lost in self-
admiration, while the hosts march by ? Are they even doing as
well as that ? Is it not a fact that the editors of seventy years
ago were, as a rule, better informed in law, politics, government
and history than those of to-day ? The statesmen and lawyers
and political students who used to do editorial work for ambition
or intellectual pleasure have ceased to frequent the news-
paper offices. There is no trade so humble that it is not de-
veloping a standard of progressive competence based on thorough
training. For the more intellectual professions law, medicine,
art, architecture, music, engineering in all its varied branches
the years of preparation are stretching over ever-lengthening
periods.

Is the most exacting profession ot all the one that requires
the widest and the deepest knowledge and the firmest foundations
of character to be left entirely to the chances of self-education ?
Is the man who is everybody's critic and teacher the only one
who does himself not need to be taught ?

" He (Gladstone) was never very ready to talk about himself, but when asked what he regarded \\That Should
as his master secret, he always said, ' Concentration. 1 Steady practice of instant, fixed, effectual T> T , .
attention. . . ."JOHN MORLEY.

and How ?

Style. Everybody says that a college of journalism must
teach good English style. But what is a good style and how
shall it be taught ?

The importance and the rarity of a really good English style
are so great that, to my own mind, this college will be worth
all it costs if it shall succeed only in teaching the future gen-
erations of journalists what a wonderful art Style is and how to
perfect themselves in it.

27

"The style is the man," said Buffon ; by which he obviously
meant that the best thing in any man's writing is that which is
individual giving his own thought in his own way. But the
important thing is to develop the style that is the man in a
manner to make it conform to the requisites of the best news-
paper writing, namely, accuracy, clearness, terseness and
forcefulness.

The literary art is in general very inadequately taught and
very little appreciated in this country. No artist aspires to fame
without a knowledge of form and color and drawing. But one
has only to read the newspapers and the books without number
issued from the press to perceive that many authors audaciously
begin their careers without having learned to write.

In no profession is the art of writing more important than in
journalism, which is daily turning out a literature ephemeral,
it is true, and in great part bad, but still the literature of the
millions. Yet one style will not answer the manifold require-
ments of a newspaper. There must be a different style for each
kind of work polemical, descriptive, analytical, literary, satirical,
expository, critical, narrative and the mind of the editor, like a
trained musical ear, must be able to detect every note out of place.
An argumentative editorial on the tariff must not be written in the
vein that would be appropriate to a pathetic description of a
mother's search for a lost child, nor must a satirical dissection of
a politician resemble a report of a bankruptcy case.

But through all the varied styles fit for use in a newspaper
there runs one common feature public interest. Whether the
subject he touches be profound or trivial, the journalist must not
be dull nor involved nor hard to understand. He must know
exactly what he wants to say, how to say it and when to stop.
He must have a Gallic lucidity and precision.

He must have the critical faculty, for all newspaper work in-
volves criticism and analysis. The journalist criticises everything
under the sun ; his eye is always at the mental microscope and his
hand on the dissecting-knife.

Acute journalists gradually fashion their own styles through
observation and practice. They can never be relieved of that ne-
cessity by any attempt to fit a ready-made style to them ; but
may they not be helped by a course of instruction systematically
explaining what journalism requires, with illustrations of good
and bad work ?

" Honest and independent journalism is the mightiest force evolved by modern civilization. With
all its faults and what human institution is faultless ? it is indispensable to the life of a free people. The
frontiers of the constitutional privilege of the press are as wide as human thought, and it is one of the
glories of our country that its journalism as a whole is incorrupt, fearless and patriotic. Jt is the never-
sleeping enemy of bigotry, sectionalism, ignorance and crime. It deserves the freedom which our fathers
gave it. It has justified itself." ALTON B. PARKER, Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals.

Everybody says that Law must be taught. Assuredly ! but
how ?

There are manifold branches of the law. International law,
constitutional interpretation, the law of corporations, of con-
tracts, of real estate, wills, patents, divorce, the criminal law and
a score of other important subjects, each command the almost
undivided attention of legal experts who have practically become
specialists.

To attempt the mastery of all phases of the law as taught in a
law school would be impossible for a student of journalism. Nor
is it necessary. Here, again, the fundamental idea underlying the
entire scheme of this college, of specialising the instruction, is
seen to be essential. The regular student of law must learn not
merely the principles but the practice and precedents of his pro-
fession. But the journalist needs to know only the principles and
theories of law and so much of their application as relates directly

29

to the rights and the welfare of the public. The art of selection
must be employed in separating the essential and the practical
from the non-essential and the impractical.

Take the question of franchises, which has become so impor-
tant to municipalities and to the country at large. Would not a
series of special lectures, prepared by a competent jurist, instruct
those who aim to become teachers and guardians of the people
as to the nature and proper limitations of public franchises ? A
clear definition of the nature and responsibilities of a "common
carrier "and of the reservations and conditions which it is right
to impose upon corporations that seek the use of public property,
like the streets of a city, for private gain, would be of great ad-
vantage to those who will be called upon to protect the public
interests in the future.

There is much in the papers and a good deal, it must be
confessed, that is either ignorant or demagogic, or both in de-
nunciation of monopolies. How many know the fundamental fact
that oppressive monopolies are abhorrent to the common law,
which we inherited from England ? How many know the differ-
ence between common law and statute law ? President Cleve-
land, President Roosevelt and even the astute Mr. Olney thought
a constitutional amendment necessary to enable Congress to forbid
and punish "trusts, monopolies or other conspiracies in restraint
of trade." But the Supreme Court has frequently decided, and
has just reaffirmed the truth I have maintained for fourteen years,
that under the common law all these combinations are unlawful
and subject to the restraint of Congress under the Constitution.

The relations of capital and labor, which present one of the
greatest problems before us as a nation and one filled with po-
tentialities of the gravest danger, and the ownership or regulation
of public utilities by municipalities or by the nation, both involve

30

many strictly legal or constitutional points. The discussion of
these questions in the press is too commonly partisan, superficial
or demagogic. Would it not be of great advantage to the press
and the public if journalists were instructed in the basic principles
of law and equity in these matters ? Is it not entirely practicable
to teach them the legal meaning of such phases as "eminent
domain," "vested rights," "the public welfare" (as used in the
Constitution), "corporate privileges," and the like ?

The writ of injunction, or " government by injunction " as it
has been mischievously called, would it not be enlightening and
useful if a great jurist like Justice Brewer or James C. Carter or
Joseph Choate were to give to the students in the College of Jour-
nalism a history of this writ and a dispassionate account of its
uses and necessity and possible limitations in a free government ?

And so of divorce the press teems with scandals arising from
the too easy sundering of marriage ties. Clergymen deplore its
evils, moralists suggest impossible remedies, legislators meddle
only to muddle. Would it not conduce to the enactment of a
national divorce law, uniform and stringent, if the journalists of
the future were impressed with the anomaly of forty-five separate
and often conflicting laws of marriage and divorce in this indis-
soluble Union ?

The fundamental things the settled principles of law that
touch closely the life and the welfare of the people can surely be
taught in a series of lectures by eminent lawyers, aided by the
standard text-books. Nearly forty years ago, preparatory to my
admission to the bar in St. Louis, I not only read but studied
Blackstone ; and I have never seen the day in my whole journal-
istic experience when I did not feel thankful for what I then
learned of the principles of law.

A carefully specialized course of study adapted to teach the

31

student of journalism what he needs to know, and omitting the
things that are not required by one who has no intention of prac-
tising law, will, it seems to me, prove to be not only wholly
practicable, but in the highest degree useful. No subject is more
important, for Law is the basis of Civilization, the regulator of
Liberty, the safeguard of Order, the formal expression of a nation's
ideas of Justice and Justice is the supreme test of any and all
government.
Ethics Everybody says that ethics should be taught. But how ?

1 have expressed myself poorly indeed if 1 have not made it
clear that here is the heart of the whole matter.

Without high ethical ideals a newspaper, however amusing and
prosperous, not only is stripped of its splendid possibilities of pub-
lic service, but may become a positive danger to the community.
There will naturally be a course in ethics, but training in ethical
principles must not be confined to that. It must pervade all the
courses. Ideals, character, professional standards not to be
infringed without shame, a sense of honor which, as Burke said
of the totally undeserving French noblesse, feels a stain like a
wound : these will be the motif of the whole institution, never
forgotten even in its most practical work.

News is important it is the very life of a paper. But what is
life without character? What is the life of a nation or of an
individual without honor, without heart and soul ?

Above knowledge, above news, above intelligence, the heart
and soul of a paper lie in its moral sense, in its courage, its
integrity, its humanity, its sympathy for the oppressed, its in-
dependence, its devotion to the public welfare, its anxiety to
render public service.

Without these there may be clever journalists, but never a
truly great or honorable one.

32

Everybody says a journalist must study literature. True-- Literature
but how ? A college course is too short to allow even the barest
introduction to all the great works with which a newspaper writer
ought to be familiar. But it can make a beginning, which can be
intelligent and thorough as far as it goes. The student would
have time enough to become intimately acquainted with a few
of the masterpieces whose web of imagery and allusion has
become part of the texture of English style.

Perhaps I may take it for granted that in this course particular
attention will be paid to the literature of politics, from Plato to
Burke, from the letters of Junius to Hamilton's famous Federalist
letters, and from Jefferson to Lincoln.

Everybody says that a journalist ought to be taught the im- Truth and
portance of truth and accuracy. But how ?

Journalism implies the duty and art of omniscience. A news-
paper never admits that there is anything it does not know. But
while the newspaper may know everything, the man who helps to
make it does not, and owing to the limited capacity of the human
brain he never can.

More important, therefore, than filling him up with facts that
can never reach the measure of his needs is his instruction in the
art of finding things when they are required. Does a reader ask
how many national bank-notes were outstanding in 1867 ? The
editor may not know, but by turning to the report of the
Comptroller of the Currency he can find out, and then the paper
knows.

The library of reference is the editor's best friend, and the art
of going at once to the proper source for any needed piece of in-
formation is one of the most useful arts a journalist can possibly
acquire. And is not this something that could easily be taught
in a class-room ?

83

The bibliography of books of reference, with instruction in the
art of finding data with speed and precision, would make a well-
defined college course. There is always some best source for
every kind of information some original source from which the
facts trickle through all sorts of media and finally reach the public
at second, third or fourth hand.

To know these sources of exact knowledge, to be able to put
one's hand on them instantly, and so to be able to state facts with
absolute confidence in their accuracy could there be any more
useful equipment for a journalist ?

History " He alone reads history aright who, observing how powerfully circumstances influence the feelings
and opinions of men, how often virtues pass into vices and paradoxes into axioms, learns to distinguish
what is accidental and transitory in human nature from what is essential and immutable." MACAULAY.

Everybody says that a school of journalism must teach his-
tory. But how ? The world's historical records fill thousands
of volumes. The utmost that any scholar can do in a whole life-
time is to dip into this mass of material here and there and take
out something that he particularly wants. But the average college
class is composed of young men with all kinds of purposes, and
therefore with all kinds of wants, and these young men must all
be taught together. Therefore the professor, perforce, prepares
for them a neutral course.

Now let us suppose that instead of lecturing for the general
student in a general way a professor of history should concentrate
sharply upon the special object of the journalist, upon the special,
separate needs of his training. Might he not then find time to
throw light upon such subjects as these :

The history of politics. (" History," said Seeley, " is past poli-
tics and politics is future history.")

The growth and development of free institutions and the
causes of their decay.

84

Revolutions, reforms and changes of government.

The influence of public opinion upon all progress.

Legislation.

Taxation.

Moral movements.

Slavery and war.

Conflicts between capital and labor.

The history of colonization, illuminating American policy by
European experience.

The history of journalism.

Of course, in this review general history would be lightly
touched, English history nlore thoroughly, and American history
would have several times as much attention as all the rest
combined. And through all its phases would run the idea of
progress, especially the progress of justice, of civilization, of
humanity, of public opinion and of the democratic idea and
ideal.

Everybody says that a college of journalism should teach Sociology
sociology. But how?

Vague and almost formless as this science is, it is full of the
raw material of the newspaper. Charles Booth's monumental
seventeen volumes on the life and labor of the people of London,
with its maps showing block by block where the thrifty workers
congregate and where live the submerged tenth, where dens of
vice elbow schools and where the saloon crowds upon the tene-
ment, are the last condensation of a hundred years of reporting.
Sociology, the science of the life of man in society, is the sys-
tematization of facts which it is the daily business of the journal-
ist to collect.

The chief difficulty in teaching this science is that it is so very
broad like a river in flood, without any definite channel. But

35

a professor who knows what to leave out can frame a course,
theoretical and practical, that will be one of the best possible
introductions to newspaper work.

Economics Everybody says that a college of journalism should teach
economics. But how?

May I not say with confidence that it should not confine itself
to the old, arid, abstract political economy, but should deal with
the new play of industrial and commercial forces that is trans-
forming modern society?

The relations between capital and labor, for instance. Can a
journalist be too well informed about that ? There are things
here of which the old economists, with their " haggling of the
market " and their " natural laws of wages," never dreamed.
The Enemies of There are dangers ahead for the Republic. The demagogue
the Republic j s j n the land. He is trying to array society into two camps.
There is a new irrepressible conflict which it is folly to ignore.
The stupendous growth of corporate power ; the enormous
increase in individual fortunes, combined to control railroad
systems and industries, defiant of law and destructive of com-
petition ; the growing inequalities in life, in station and in op-
portunity; the practical disfranchisement of many millions of
citizens equal under the Constitution ; the enormous mass of
illiteracy and political unfitness in the Southern States ; the in-
tensified antagonism of labor against corporate capital, of em-
ployees against employers, the growth of corruption in cities -
aie problems which will tax the wisdom of our statesmen and
the serene self-confidence of our people.

This confidence would be sublime if it were not blind ! What
reason have we for thinking that our Government is exempt from
the mutations of history? Is not, in fact, our Republic liable to
popular passion, sitting as it does in a glass house, subject to the

conflicts, the disturbances and the possible reactions of elections
every two and four years ?

A change of 25,000 votes in certain close States in 1896 would
have put Mr. Bryan into the White House and have given him
the appointment of three Supreme Court justices. With grow-
ing discontent, with appeals to ignorance by some newspapers,
powerfully assisted by the proceedings of some financiers who
act on the principle, " after us the deluge," who can be so dense
as not to see the certainty of popular reaction against the money
power, the rich, especially in hard times? Is it inconceivable
that an element that could command over six million votes in
1896 might, under other conditions, secure twenty-five thousand
more ? Who can be so overconfident of the future as not to see
that the very fire of liberty, maintained by universal suffrage,
brings danger every two years or every four years, unless that
liberty be regulated by law, order, intelligence and self-control ?

And can we ignore the growing power and intelligence of or-
ganized labor in any course of economic study? Not only do the
labor-unions represent organized hostility to organized capital,
but they now display this very remarkable development that
they do not represent poor labor, destitute labor, as they formerly
did and are supposed by some still to do, but what may fairly be
called semi-capitalistic labor. Is it not most significant that after
a six months' strike in the anthracite regions, during which the
idle miners were reported to have drawn a million dollars from
the funds of their union, that union still has, on the authority of
Mr. John Mitchell, approximately another million dollars in its
treasury? The laborers, in- fact, have become semi-capitalists
through organization. When they are armed with such a weapon,
with the power of co-operation, with a strong leader, and with at
least a million of votes for which the politicians of both parties are

37

bidding, are there not sufficient possibilities to make the situation
worth the study of men who assume to be popular teachers ?

And Socialism ! a new economics in itself treated as beyond
the pale of respectable discussion a few years ago and now in prin-
ciple actually triumphant in Germany, France, and even in so con-
servative a country as England, whose bill for the purchase and
distribution of landed estates in Ireland is the essence of state
Socialism, what of that ? The German socialists openly refuse
to be considered simply as a political party, accepting the present
situation and trying to improve existing institutions from within.
They proclaim their purpose as distinctly revolutionary.

We have socialistic beginnings in America, such as demands
for the Government ownership of mines and railroads and a pen-
sion roll on which we have spent three thousand million dollars
since the civil war, and to which, already containing a million
names, 300,000 new names have just been added by an act of
Executive usurpation. But our Socialism has no leaders like
Jaures and Bebel two of the greatest intellects in Europe.

How soon shall we have two such men in America not
gifted merely with Mr. Bryan's talent for oratory, but with sound
judgment, with stable character, and with sincerity of purpose
that would give them a hold on the people not to be obtained
except through that confidence which only such sincerity of
character and soundness of judgment breed ?

Arbitration And what are we to say of arbitration, that great engine of
civilization, belonging equally to economics and to politics, and
perhaps to ethics, which is daily proving its value as a substitute
for disturbances, disorder, riot and war ? The very act of sub-
mitting a dispute to arbitration proves that there is something to
be said on both sides. The men who arrogantly issue demands
for which they offer no reason but simple power have " nothing to

arbitrate." Before an arbitration tribunal questions are discussed
on their merits. Appeals to prejudice, to class or national ani-
mosities, to cynical self-interest, are dropped. Every such hearing
is a lesson in order and civilization.

There is always a tendency on the part of the weaker side to
ask for arbitration and on that of the stronger to refuse it. Here
is the opportunity of the press to bring its moral force into the
dispute and overcome the obstinacy of brute strength by the pres-
sure of public opinion.

The literature of arbitration is already immense. The work-
ings of experiments in compulsory arbitration, of boards of
conciliation, of permanent State arbitration tribunals, of standing
arbitration agreements between labor-unions and employers, and
of the long line of international settlements leading up to the
establishment of the world's court of arbitration at The Hague,
would furnish material in themselves for a full and most valuable
course of study for a journalist.

Everybody says that statistics should be taught. But how ? statistics

Statistics are not simply figures. It is said that nothing lies
like figures except facts. You want statistics to tell you the
truth. You can find truth there if you know how to get at it, and
romance, human interest, humor and fascinating revelations as
well. The journalist must know how to find all these things
truth, of course, first. His figures must bear examination. It is
much better to understate than to overstate his case, so that his
critics and not himself may be put to confusion when they chal-
lenge him to verify his comparisons.

He must not read his statistics blindly; he must be able to test
them by knowledge and by common sense. He must always be
on the alert to discover how far they can actually be trusted and
what they really mean. The analysis of statistics to get at the

39

essential truth of them has become a well-developed science
whose principles are systematically taught. And what a fasci-
nating science it is ! What romance can equal the facts of our
national growth ?

Is it not a stupendous fact that there are 204,000 miles of rail-
road in the United States (more than in the whole of Europe),
owned by companies having a total capitalization of more than
$14,000,000,000, par value, affording livelihood to 5,000,000 of
persons (employees and their families), and distributing $178,-
000,000 in dividends to owners and $610,713,701 in wages?

The flow of our exports, over three thousand millions above
imports in seven years, does not the imagination see in these
figures the whole story of the recent forward rush of American
industry the "American invasion" of Europe and the home-
ward flight of securities ? And then, are there not interesting
reflections in the fact that we have spent almost exactly the same
amount in pensions in the past thirty years ? What a tribute
to our institutions what hope for the future in the fact that
18,000,000 pupils are attending school or college! And immi-
gration, more than 20,000,000 since 1820; nearly a million ar-
rivals last year a New Zealand swallowed in a year, an Australia
in four years, surely it looks as if Europe were being transplanted
bodily to America. But when we remember that the natural
increase of the population of Europe is about four millions a year
we may feel reasonably sure that the old continent will always
have a few people left.

Modem Everybody says a school of journalism should teach modern
Languages languages. But which ?

It cannot treat them as a luxurious culture subject or as a
mental discipline. It must regard each foreign language as a tool
a key with which to unlock the life, the literature, the morals

40

and the manners of the people that use it. "He who knows no
other tongue," said Goethe, "knows little of his own." And
every additional tongue he can master is a new asset for the jour-
nalist. The special advantage of French is on the side of style.
Order, precision, lucidity, artistic form, are all French characteris-
tics, of especial value to the journalist.

An advantage of German is that it is, above all others, the lan-
guage of translations. With that you have a key to everything
else. Everything of importance in every other language, ancient
or modern, has been translated into German, and translated
wonderfully well. How much can be done in two or three years
in the teaching of one or more modern languages as a part of that
special course is a matter for the Advisory Board and the college
authorities to consider.

Everybody says that physical science should be taught. But physical

how ? Science

Even when Pope said, "The proper study of mankind is man,"
there were some things outside of himself that were worth a
little of a philosopher's attention. But in this age it is impossible to
make even a pretence of intelligence, not to speak of filling the post
of a public teacher without, at least, a little scientific knowledge.

The journalist need not be a specialist in science ; he need not
even follow the ordinary scientific courses at college, which are too
choked with small details to answer his needs. But ought he not
to have some bold outlines of the principles of physics, chemistry,
biology and astronomy, in the light of the latest discoveries, with
such an introduction to the best authorities on these subjects as
would enable him to follow them to any further extent by
himself?

Everybody says that in the training of a journalist the current The study of
newspapers must be studied. But how ? Newspapers

41

Suppose the managing or chief editor of a great daily, moved
by a generous zeal for his profession, should give several hours to
a thorough study of the newspapers of the current day. Then
let us imagine him saying to a class : " Here is the best and here is
the worst story of the day" -and telling why. " Here is the
wrong of the day; here is the injustice that needs to be righted ;
here is the best editorial ; here is a brilliant paragraph ; here is
a bit of sentimental trash; here is a superb 'beat'; here is a
scandalous ' fake ' for which the perpetrator ought to go to Sing
Sing ; here is a grossly inaccurate and misleading headline ; here is
an example of crass ignorance of foreign politics ; here is some-
thing ' crammed ' from an almanac by a man who does not know
the meaning of figures when he sees them."

If the editors of twenty of the foremost journals in the country
should deliver such lectures in turn, " demonstrating " from the
day's paper as the lecturer in a medical college does from the
object of his clinic, could a young man worth his room in a news-
paper office go through a year of their training without learning
to see and to think ? Would not that course alone be a liberal
education ?

The Power p u blic opinion is at once the guide and the monitor of statesmen." ERSKINE MAY.

of Ideas

Everybody says that journalistic ideas should be taught. But
how ? and by whom ?

Goethe said : " Everything has been thought of before, but the
difficulty is to think of it again." If everything has been thought
of before, it can all be recalled and set down in order. You can
make a list of all the important ideas that brought honor and suc-
cess in journalism in the last twenty years. Would it be possible
for anybody, unless he were a fool, to survey for three hundred
days in the year a procession of ideas on which successful and

42

respectable newspapers had been founded and maintained without
absorbing, digesting, assimilating and unconsciously taking into
his brain thought which he could apply to his own needs ?

Fools have had no place in my plans for a college of journalism.
They belong with the journalists who are " born, not made."

To think rightly, to think instantly, to think incessantly, to
think intensely, to seize opportunities when others let them go by
-this is the secret of success in journalism. To teach this is
twenty times more important than to teach Latin or Greek.

Napoleon said that every battle depended upon one thought,
but that one thought, though seeming to be a sudden inspiration,
was the result of a whole life of thinking and experience.

Thought is the only power that has no limits. You may say of
a steam boiler : " This will develop a thousand horse-power," but
who can say where the influence of a thought will stop ?

The French Revolution sprang from the thought of a few men.
Voltaire, Rousseau and the Encyclopaedists said that the idea of
the people belonging to the King by divine right was preposter-
ous ; that the people belonged to themselves. This thought-germ
floated in the air ; the American Revolution stimulated it, and sud-
denly the awakened people made the thought a deed.

An old thought applied to a new situation is new. Robespierre
spoke of " government of the people, by the people, for the
people " long before Lincoln was born. Yet who remembers
Robespierre in connection with that phrase which Lincoln re-
created and immortalized ?

Before the days of railroads, of telegraphs or of great industrial
and commercial combinations a thinker in France attacked corpo-
rations as a danger to the state, because, having no souls, they
were destitute of that sense of pride and personal responsibility,
of individual shame and honor, without which good citizenship is

48

impossible. It was the idea of Helvetius that devotion to the
state is the first duty of patriotism. In his day that idea seemed
purely theoretical ; corporations were not then really formidable.
But the thought was sound and the time has come when it is
practical.

"There is nothing new under the sun." Mr. Bryan's idea of
scaling down debts by law is as old as social discontent. If
he had read history attentively he would not have taken himself
so seriously as an agitator. His scheme was tried by Lycurgus,
by Solon, by the Gracchi ; it was part of the programme of Cati-
line. Even the method of doing it, by depreciating the value of
the coinage, was applied repeatedly by European kings in the
Middle Ages and later.

None of us can hope to be original. We simply take from the
great stock of old thoughts what suits our purpose, and it
depends upon ourselves and our training whether we select the
good or the bad.

Principles of Everybody says that we should teach the principles and
journalism me thods of journalism. But how?

Well, it seems impossible to do so without lectures explaining
the subject in a systematic way. But would not still more be
gained from the actual preparation by the students of a newspaper
to be printed, perhaps, once a week at first, by means of a press
and plant, for which I have provided, in the college building ?

Such a paper would give practice in all branches of newspaper
work editing, reporting, criticising, copy-reading, proof-reading,
making-up everything, in short, that a young man ought to be
able to do before he ventures to undertake the work of a jour-
nalist. It would be under the supervision of a professor who
would not only wield the pencil as ruthlessly as a real editor does,
but would also do what the real editor has no time to do tell

44

why he did it. Sometimes all the students might be asked to
write editorials on the same subject, and the best one could be
printed, with an explanation of the reasons for its selection.

If the ablest twenty editors in the country, or in the East, or in
New York, were to consent to take turns once or twice a year in
analyzing and criticising the paper so produced and the New York
dailies, putting their best thought and experience into the task,
the students would have the benefit, not of one mind, but of
twenty, and these the best in the profession. Would not editors
in sympathy with the plan do this much as a matter of pride, of
honor ? By such practice, under such expert criticism, the jour-
nalist would be trained for work, as the young officer is trained for
war by military manoeuvres.

But the object of the course would be always to make real
editors, to develop right thinking to teach the student that
what makes a newspaper is not type, nor presses, nor advertising,
but brains, conscience, character working out into public service.

But 1 must stop and should perhaps apologize for the inter- Finale
minable length of this paper, which has exceeded all reasonable
bounds. The writing of it has convinced me that the two years'
course of study suggested for the College of Journalism would be
altogether too short for, after all, we have not yet said anything
about news.

It is not that I underestimate its value. News is the life of a
paper. It is perennially changing more varied than any kaleido-
scope, bringing every day some new surprise, some new sensation
always the unexpected.

But I have no time to treat the subject adequately, and ought to
confess that the editorial discussion of politics and public questions
has ever been the matter of deepest personal interest to me.

News is very interesting, but there are others who no doubt

45

will take care of it better than I. Give me a news editor who has
been well grounded, who has the foundations of accuracy, love of
truth and an instinct for the public service, and there will be no
trouble about his gathering the news.

Public Service " What are great gifts but the correlative of great work ? We are not born for ourselves but for our

the Supreme kind, for our neighbors, for our country." CARDINAL NEWMAN.

It has been said by some that my object in founding the College
of Journalism was to help young men who wish to make this their
vocation. Others have commended it as an effort to raise journal-
ism to its real rank as one of the learned professions. This is true.
But while it is a great pleasure to feel that a large number of
young men will be helped to a better start in life by means of this
college, this is not my primary object. Neither is the elevation of
the profession which I love so much and regard so highly. In all
my planning the chief end I had in view was the welfare of the
Republic. It will be the object of the college to make better jour-
nalists, who will make better newspapers, which will better serve
the public. It will impart knowledge not for its own sake, but
to be used for the public service. It will try to develop character,
but even that will be only a means to the one supreme end the
public good. We are facing that hitherto unheard-of portent an
innumerable, world-wide, educated and self-conscious democracy.
The little revolutions of the past have been effected by a few
leaders working upon an ignorant populace, conscious only of
vague feelings of discontent. Now the masses read. They know
their grievances and their power. They discuss in New York the
position of labor in Berlin and in Sydney. Capital, too, is de-
veloping a world-wide class feeling. It likewise has learned the
power of co-operation.

What will be the state of society and of politics in this Republic
seventy years hence, when some of the children now in school

46

will be still living ? Shall we preserve the government of the
Constitution, the equality of all citizens before the law and the
purity of justice or shall we have the government of either money
or the mob ?

The answers to these questions will depend largely upon the
kind of instruction the people of that day draw from their news-
papersthe text-books, the orators, the preachers of the masses.

I have said so much of the need for improvement in journalism
that to avoid misconception I must put on record my appreciation
of the really admirable work so many newspaper men are doing
already. The competent editorial writer, for instance how much
sound information he furnishes every day ! How generally just
his judgments are, and how prompt his decisions ! Unknown to
the people he serves, he is in close sympathy with their feelings
and aspirations, and when left to himself and unhampered by
party prejudices he generally interprets their thought as they
would wish to express it themselves.

It is not too much to say that the press is the only great organ-
ized force which is actively and as a body upholding the standard
of civic righteousness. There are many political reformers among
the clergy, but the pulpit as an institution is concerned with the
Kingdom of Heaven, not with the Republic of America. There
are many public-spirited lawyers, but the bar as a profession works
for its retainers, and no law-defying trust ever came to grief from
a dearth of legal talent to serve it. Physicians work for their pa-
tients and architects for their patrons. The press alone makes the
public interests its own. "What is everybody's business is no-
body's business " except the journalist's ; it is his by adoption.
But for his care almost every reform would fall stillborn. He
holds officials to their duty. He exposes secret schemes of
plunder. He promotes every hopeful plan of progress. Without

47

him public opinion would be shapeless and dumb. He brings all
classes, all professions together, and teaches them to act in con-
cert on the basis of their common citizenship.

The Greeks thought that no republic could be successfully
governed if it were too large for all the citizens to come together
in one place. The Athenian democracy could all meet in the
popular assembly. There public opinion was made, and accord-
ingly as the people listened to a Pericles or to a Cleon the state
flourished or declined. The orator that reaches the American
democracy is the newspaper. It alone makes it possible to keep
the political blood in healthful circulation in the veins of a
continental republic. We have it is unfortunately true a few
newspapers which advocate dangerous fallacies and falsehoods, ap-
pealing to ignorance, to partisanship, to passion, to popular preju-
dice, to poverty, to hatred of the rich, to socialism, sowing the
seeds of discontent eventually sure, if unchecked, to produce
lawlessness and bloodshed. Virtue, said Montesquieu, is the prin-
ciple of a republic, and therefore a republic, which in its purity is the
most desirable of all forms of government, is the hardest of all to
preserve. For there is nothing more subject to decay than virtue.

Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able,
disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to
know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public
virtue without which popular government is a sham and a
mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic, corrupt press will
produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould
the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists
of future generations. This is why I urge my colleagues to aid
this important experiment. Upon their generous aid and co-
operation the ultimate success of the project must depend.

JOSEPH PULITZER.

48

The Power of Public Opinion 1

IN attempting to estimate the sources, the power and limita-
tions of public opinion it is necessary first to determine what
public opinion is. Webster defines private opinion as " the judg-
ment or sentiment which the mind forms of persons or things."
More broadly, it may be defined as a conviction based on evi-
dence, an assent secured by argument, or a view acquired, per-
haps unconsciously, through the reading habit. Public opinion
may be described as the aggregate of private opinion. It is what
the mass or the majority believes or feels. A popular government
is government by public opinion expressed in elections and formu-
lated in statutes. Public opinion as it regulates the conduct of a
community is an unwritten law a dominant sentiment repre-
senting a common agreement or code of morals and manners.

History shows in nearly every age the force of public opinion. Examples
In the democratic communities of Greece the great orators mE
Pericles, Demosthenes and their disciples influenced events
through their appeals to the people. In Rome public opinion
was potent alike under the republic and the empire. Mark An-
tony's harangue, stirring up civil war, was to the populace. It

1 Reprinted by permission from the Encyclopedia Americana.
49

was not until the Reformation in England had finally gained over
public opinion that it became firmly established. It was respon-
sible for the civil war, for the reaction in favor of Charles II., for
the expulsion of James II., his brother and successor, for the
selection of William of Orange and the introduction of the Hano-
verian dynasty. Public opinion in England forced upon suc-
cessive Cabinets the necessity for reform of the franchise and of
the corn laws. Public opinion directed the Declaration of Inde-
pendence in this country and sustained the long war for freedom.
Public opinion was the prime cause of the unification and emanci-
pation of Italy and of the consolidation of the German Empire.
Public opinion inspired and carried through the successive revolu-
tions in France in 1789, 1830, 1848 and 1870. In the latter year
the fall of the empire and the establishment of the republic was
effected by a proclamation in the streets and without the shedding
of blood.

In every state whose system of government is in essence
democratic no change of dynasty, of administration, of constitu-
tion, can be effected that is not directly caused by the operation
of public opinion. In modern government public opinion is
effective in exact ratio to the freedom of the people. Jefferson
called public opinion "that lord of the universe." But it is not
lord in Russia, for it is fettered there. Wendell Phillips, at the
height of the anti-slavery agitation in New England, said if he
lived in Russia he should be an Anarchist, because in that land
there was "no free press, no Faneuil Hall, no ballot-box." But
in a country like ours, where, as General Grant said, "the will of
the people is the law of the land," it is highly important to know
what are the creative causes of public opinion. When is it to be
followed and when opposed ? What is the best method of influ-
encing it ? How shall it be directed to produce practical results ?

60

Public opinion as a moral and political force finds its inspiration The Press
and its expression in the press and on the platform. Gutenberg as its
was the founder of modern public opinion. The printing press Ins P iration
was a most important factor in disseminating the religious views Expression
advocated by the Reformers and in thus fashioning a supporting
public opinion. The spoken words of Luther reached only the few ;
printed they reached the many. Thousands of tracts and pam-
phlets were scattered throughout Germany, carrying the thought-
germs of the new religious ideas. With the advent of the
newspaper there began to be felt in the world a new power-
"the mightiest ever known for the creation, development and
direction of the greatest of modern forces majority public
opinion."

The astute De Tocqueville said : " A newspaper can drop the
same thought into a thousand minds at the same moment." But
now one newspaper can drop the same thought into a million
minds on the same day. In 1900, according to the census of that
year, the 2,226 daily newspapers of this country had an aggregate
circulation of 15,102,156 copies. The total circulation per issue of
all newspapers and periodicals was 1 14,299,334, and the aggregate
number of copies circulated in a year reached the almost incon-
ceivable total of 8, 168, 148,749. Nearly one thousand of the prin-
cipal daily papers of the country, with an aggregate circulation of
more than 13,000,000, belong to one great news organization
the Associated Press of the United States. They receive the same
despatches, covering every habitable quarter of the globe. The
same facts, the same condensations of news and views, are
" dropped into the mind " of these millions of readers on the
same day.

This instantaneous and constant enlightenment of the people
as to the affairs of our own country and of the world was what

51

the writer had in view in saying, ten years ago : " Publicity is the
greatest moral factor and force in the universe." President Eliot
of Harvard expressed the same view, seven years later, in saying :
*' Publicity is the great security for democracy, the best weapon
against political, social, industrial or commercial wrong-doing,
and in the long run the most trustworthy means of political
and social progress." And Justice Brewer, of the United States
Supreme Court, in a brief but pregnant statement on "the effect
of a free press on American life," written for the New York World,
spoke of the service of the press " in the evolution of the court of
public opinion, that court mightier than any organized tribunal, at
whose bar are judged all men, events and parties."
is the It is sometimes said by superficial observers that the influence
of the press is declining. How can it decline when its character
Declining? nas steadily improved and its aggregate circulation has enor-
mously increased ? Have facts lost their power ? Does informa-
tion no longer promote intelligence ? Are men less responsive
than formerly to sound arguments and sensible appeals ? Thirty
years ago an eminent bishop of the Episcopal Church said : " It is
the press that creates public opinion. It is the grand fact of the
hour that popular sentiment has been educated by the press up to
the point of spurning party trammels and voting on principle."

If this were true in 1873 how much more universally true is it
now ! Nearly every great newspaper in this country to-day is
independent financially and politically. The last six Presidential
elections have been decided by the independent vote, led by the
independent press.

The result of the municipal election in the city of New York in
1903, when the Tammany candidate for Mayor was elected by a
plurality of 62,000, in spite of the practically united opposition
of the press of the city, has been cited as evidence that the

53

newspapers have not the influence commonly attributed to them.
It is to be noted, however, that the Democratic majority was re-
duced one-half from that secured in the preceding year ; that in
the city there are tens' of thousands of illiterate voters who are
not susceptible to the arguments or appeals of the press ; that an
even greater number cannot read, and that a very large proportion
of the total number of voters are impervious to argument in an
election by reason of their ingrained but honest partisanship or by
a selfish interest in the success of the ticket of their choice as
the saloon-keepers and their patrons, the law-breaking classes,
the office-seekers, etc. That in a total vote of nearly 600,000,
representing a normal Democratic majority of 120,000, a non-
partisan ticket needed only 5 per cent, more of the vote to have
triumphed is really a tribute to the influence of the press, par-
ticularly in the light of the strange mistake made in defying public
opinion by strictly enforcing obsolete puritanical Sunday laws
which the majority of the cosmopolitan people of the city regard
as odious infringements of their personal liberty.

The journalist acts upon and through public opinion, and The
therefore, from his point of view, the development of public opjn- Controlling
ion is the central thread of history. It is inseparably connected ^donaT
with the growth of his own profession. History is filled with ac- Affairs
counts of wars and their causes, but to the journalist the re-
markable point in that relation is the fact that wars used to be
made by individual caprice, while to-day no great duel between
nations can be begun or carried on without the support of public
opinion. For example, in 1870 Napoleon III. and King William
were in legal theory the war lords of France and Prussia. Per-
sonally they both sincerely wanted peace, yet they could not
have it. Bismarck wanted war, and he got it by manipulating
public opinion, which was stronger than the monarchs. He

53

excited the French by permitting the candidature of a Hohenzollern
prince for the throne of Spain. Then that was withdrawn and
Bismarck seemed checkmated. He and his associates of the Prus-
sian war party, Moltke and Roon, were in despair, when Napo-
leon III. fatuously helped them by demanding an assurance that no
Hohenzollern ever would accept the Spanish throne in the future.
Benedetti, the French Ambassador, stopped King William on the
Parade at Ems to urge this demand, and the King, losing patience,
turned his back. The Parisian press raged at this " insult to
France," while Bismarck, by some judicious alterations in the de-
spatch in which the King had described this incident, made it
appear that the French Government had insulted the Prussian
sovereign, and the German press was ablaze. Public opinion was
roused now in both countries, and two almost absolute monarchs
were forced to yield to it and go to war against their own desires.

In Morley's " Life of Gladstone " it is recorded that Lord Aber-
deen suffered "incessant self-reproach " for not having striven
harder to prevent the Crimean war ; and he asked Mr. Gladstone,
who was a member of his Cabinet, whether he did not think that
he (Lord Aberdeen) " might withdraw from office when we came
to the declaration of war," as "all along he had been acting
against his feelings." Mr. Gladstone, though sympathizing with
Lord Aberdeen's antipathy to any except defensive war, said of
the war against Russia : "The government are certainly giving
effect to the public opinion of the day."

Many honest Democrats in America, and even some Republi-
cans, doubted the wisdom of opposing secession by war. At the
time of his inauguration President Lincoln had no conception of
the terrible task before him. He thought in his first call upon the
nation for troops that he was going to suppress the rebellion in
three months with 75,000 men an incredible blunder when it is

54

remembered that the total number of men engaged on the Union
side during the four years of war became 2,772,408. The press
did its duty in that time of danger and doubt. But suppose it
had not ; suppose it had left public opinion apathetic would
Lincoln have dared to enforce the draft ? Would he have dared
to call out half the men of military age in the North ? Would he
have ventured to issue the Emancipation Proclamation ? Would
he not have offered compromises and concessions for the sake of
peace ? The public opinion of the North carried on the war for
the Union. Lincoln, great genius and matchless leader though he
was, was its masterful instrument.

In surveying the growing power of public opinion the jour-
nalist must become impressed with a sense of the grave responsi-
bility resting upon all who have any share in the guidance of that
mighty force. If he have imagination enough to picture to him-
self the consequences of inciting national animosities if he can
track reckless words to the grim realities that follow them, on the
battlefield and in widowed homes, must he not recoil with horror
and indignation from wanton provocation to war ?

President McKinley was opposed to the war with Spain and,
mild-mannered as he was, resisted Congress and the popular sen-
timent as long as he dared. Yet in the end he had to yield his
well-known and freely expressed convictions to the demand of
the public and the press, while Congress "held a stop-watch"
on him to see that the yielding was not delayed. A less striking
but still significant example is the historic fact that Mr. McKinley,
who as a Representative in Congress voted for the free and unlim-
ited coinage of silver in 1877, became the candidate and champion
of the gold standard party in 1896, owing to the change of public
sentiment on this question in his own State and in the nation.

In our labor wars, too, public opinion presses with a force

55

that is not to be resisted. In the great coal strike of 1902 the
operators, the financial interests, the conservative business men,
were almost without exception opposed to arbitration. Many ap-
peals to arbitrate were rejected, yet in the end both sides sub-
mitted. To what ? To the President of the United States ? No !
To public opinion, whose effective instrument the President was,
and whose condemnation neither side dared to face. The Presi-
dent would never have ventured to take the initiative in the un-
precedented, extraconstitutional course he adopted if the popular
voice had not encouraged him ; nor would he have been listened
to if he had.

We witnessed in England, in 1903, a most remarkable example
of the development of public opinion. It was proposed to change
the British tariff. Some centuries ago this would have been done
by the King or his Minister ; later by Parliament. Now it was ad-
mitted on all hands that neither the King nor Parliament should
have the determining voice in the decision. The House of Com-
mons was gagged and the whole discussion was addressed to the
people. Mr. Chamberlain resigned his place in the Ministry on
the ground, frankly admitted, that public opinion at the time was
against his policy. The Prime Minister accepted his resignation
with great regret for the same reason. Then Mr. Chamberlain set
himself to convert the nation, and we see at this writing going on
before us, with no election pending, the unprecedented spectacle
of an appeal to public opinion outside of Parliament that may alter
the commercial relations of the world.

Editorial Ex-President Cleveland has expressed his belief that " as a
influence g enera | ru i e the influence of newspapers in leading the judgments
and determining the conduct of their readers has greatly dimin-
ished in recent years." There are more newspapers now than
there were fifty years ago, and it is creditable to public opinion if

56

it is unaffected by and even despises the teachings of many of
them ; for if it responded to their appeals its impulses would
often be desperately bad and dangerous to the Republic. The
influence of partisan and ''organic" journalism has no doubt de-
clinedgreatly to the advantage both of the press and the
country. But to say that the influence of Publicity has declined
is equivalent to saying that the sun increases darkness ; that facts
and truth lose their effect in proportion as they become more
widely disseminated.

Editorial influence the power of the opinions of the paper as
distinguished from its news now depends almost altogether
upon public confidence in the honesty, the freedom, the fearless-
ness and the moral purpose of the journal itself. The people
have become very discriminating in this matter. They can de-
tect the advocate of selfish syndicates as well as the equally self-
ish demagogue and blatant shouter against them. They have
shown their appreciation of and confidence in newspapers that are
absolutely independent and inflexible in their devotion to what
they believe to be right that "expose all frauds and shams and
fight all public evils and abuses " without fear and without favor.

There have been too many notable instances of the influence of
newspapers in forming and leading public opinion by their editorial
utterances to leave any reasonable doubt as to the continued ex-
istence of this power. And this power will persist and increase
precisely in proportion to the fidelity of the newspapers to the
ideal and the duty of making the press a moral force in the com-
munity, serving and battling for the people with entire sincerity,
disinterestedness, freedom and fearlessness. The question
whether public opinion, however formed and guided, is always
to be respected and obeyed admits of but one rational answer.
The theory that "the voice of the people is the voice of God"

57

can be accepted only with important reservations. As public
opinion is a variable quantity, often, as Jefferson said, "changing
with the rapidity of thought," it cannot possibly always be right.
Was "the voice of the people the voice of God" when it sus-
tained human slavery in a republic dedicated to freedom ? Was
public opinion infallible when it sanctioned the instant enfran-
chisement of a race just freed from the ignorance and barbarism
of slavery? Or is it right now in practically acquiescing in the
disfranchisement of the same race after a generation of freedom
and progress in which their right to the suffrage has been guaran-
teed by the Constitution ? There are often errors of interpretation
by those who are most anxious to go with the multitude. Mr.
Bryan mistook the hysteria of the Chicago Convention for a cry
of the people for cheap money.

No! nothing is more clear than that it is often the highest
duty of the press to oppose public opinion. James Bryce has
truly said that " Democracies will always have demagogues ready
to feed their vanity and stir passions and exaggerate the feeling of
the moment. What they need is men who will swim against the
stream, will tell them their faults, will urge an argument all the
more forcibly because it is unwelcome."

Public opinion rightly informed is our court of last appeal. An
appeal may always be safely made to it against all the public
wrongs, official corruption, popular apathy or administrative
faults ; and an honest press is the effective instrument in making
this appeal.

specific In the days of the Tweed Ring corruption rioted in the plunder
instances o f ^ e c j tv treasury, and as the Ring was in possession of all the
administrative machinery and the courts the people seemed help-
less. But the New York Times exposed the evil with relentless
severity and brought to bear the public opinion that routed the

58

robbers. Tweed died in prison, and his associates sought safety
in foreign countries as fugitives from justice. Another notable
agitation of public opinion toward the correction of great abuses,
the Lexow investigation, was due to the combined endeavors of
the whole press of New York City in exposing the infamous con-
dition of our police system.

The Beef Trust, organized to enhance the price of food and
thus to enrich a great corporation by the oppression of the people,
was exposed and defeated by the appeal of the New York Herald
to the same great tribunal of public opinion. At a moment when
doubt was prevalent and public opinion was peculiarly in need
of enlightenment touching dangerous propositions regarding the
currency, the Evening Post did splendid service in fighting for
the maintenance of the gold standard.

Upon the publication of President Cleveland's Venezuelan
message the New York World appealed to the good sense of the
country against the war spirit which it was calculated to arouse.
Opinions were invited and received by cable from the present
King of England, from Mr. Gladstone, the Archbishop of Canter-
bury and many other dignitaries of the church and state in Great
Britain, disavowing any hostile intentions toward the United States
and professing the warmest sentiments of kinship and friendship.
Public opinion in this country instantly responded to these fra-
ternal expressions, and the talk of war ended in preliminaries for
arbitration.

To reveal public opinion through interviews and special tele-
grams and promptly publish it is one of the most useful functions
of the press. In 1895, deluded by the report that a certain syndicate
had control of all the gold in the country, the Government was
prepared to sell to that syndicate its bonds for $100,000,000 at
104^. But a telegram sent by the New York World to 14,000

59

banks brought 7,100 replies within twelve hours, and more than
$235,000,000 in gold was offered to the Government in exchange
for its bonds. As a result President Cleveland annulled the secret
contract with the private syndicate and issued a call for popular
subscriptions. The entire issue was subscribed for six times over
at a price of about 1 12 instead of 104$, the syndicate's offer, a gain
to the Treasury of more than $7,000,000.

Agitation for a law taxing franchises was begun by The World
newspaper in the winter of 1899. It tabulated the value of the
franchises for the use of the public streets by street railways, gas
companies, etc., from which the corporations reaped enormous
profits and paid New York City practically nothing. Day after
day the facts and figures were printed showing the magnitude of
the injustice. A bill to tax the franchises as property was intro-
duced in the State Senate. Petitions for its passage were circu-
lated by the newspaper and received within a week 30,000
signatures. A special train was despatched from New York City
to Albany, bearing delegates from organizations of workingmen
and taxpayers representing 250,000 citizens and property valued
at $80,000,000, to demand a report of the bill from the legislative
committee in which corporation and political influence had tied it
up. Many other newspapers of New York came to the support
of the movement, and Governor Roosevelt, as a result of this agi-
tation, gave his official and personal influence in its behalf through
a special message to the Legislature, which secured its passage.

Here was a concrete example of a right principle, based on
justice and advocated with untiring persistence. It is such agita-
tion as this that informs, arouses and leads public opinion in
achieving reforms.

The necessity and the power of persistence and reiteration in
attempts to create and to render effective public opinion are not

60

sufficiently appreciated by the press or by individual reformers.
To arrest the attention, convince the judgment and enlist the
sympathetic support of that great inert mass which we call the
Public is a delicate and difficult task. The press, as the chief
medium of Publicity, is alone equal to it. And as the press does
this work intelligently, conscientiously, courageously, dissemi-
nating intelligence as the sun diffuses light, so shall the power
of public opinion make for justice in government, for purity in
politics and for a higher morality in the business and social life of
the nation.

61

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